10. COMMERCIAL QUICKENING AND RELIGIOUS REFORM, 1050

Calling the Crusade

The events leading to the First Crusade began with the entry of the Seljuk Turks into Asia Minor (Map 10.1). As noted in Chapter 9, the Muslim world had splintered into numerous small states during the 900s. Weakened by disunity, those states were easy prey for the fierce Seljuk Turks—Sunni Muslims inspired by religious zeal to take over both Islamic and infidel (unbeliever) regions. By the 1050s, the Seljuks had captured Baghdad, subjugated the Abbasid caliphate, and begun to threaten Byzantium.

MAP 10.1 The First Crusade, 1096–1099

The First Crusade was a major military undertaking that required organization, movement over both land and sea, and enormous resources. Four main groups were responsible for the conquest of Jerusalem. One began at Cologne, in northern Germany; a second group started out from Blois, in France; the third originated just to the west of Provence; and the fourth launched ships from Brindisi, at the heel of Italy. All joined up at Constantinople, where their leaders negotiated with Alexius Comnenus for help and supplies in return for a pledge of vassalage to the emperor.

The difficulties the Byzantine emperor Romanus IV had in pulling together an army to attack the Turks reveal how weak his position had become. Unable to muster Byzantine troops—which either were busy defending their own districts or were under the control of dynatoi (See “The Dynatoi: A New Landowning Elite” in Chapter 9) wary of sending support to the emperor—Romanus had to rely on a mercenary army made up of Normans, Franks, Slavs, and even Turks. This motley force met the Seljuks at Manzikert in what is today eastern Turkey. The battle was a disaster for Romanus: the Seljuks routed the Byzantine army and captured the emperor. The battle of Manzikert (1071) marked the end of Byzantine domination in the region.

Gradually settling in Asia Minor, the Turks extended their control across the empire and beyond, all the way to Jerusalem, which had been under Muslim control since the seventh century and most recently had been under the rule of the Shi‘ite Fatimids. In 1095, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I (Alexius Comnenus) (r. 1081–1118) appealed for help to Pope Urban II, hoping to get new mercenary troops for a fresh offensive.

Urban II (r. 1088–1099) chose to interpret the request in his own way. At a church council in Clermont (France) in 1095 he addressed an already excited throng, telling them to “wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.” The crowd responded with one voice: “God wills it.” Urban offered all who made the difficult trek to the Holy Land to fight against the Muslims an indulgence—the forgiveness of sins. The pains of the trip would substitute for ordinary penance.

Why did Urban make this call to arms? Certainly he hoped to win Christian control of the Holy Land. He was also anxious to fulfill the goals of the Truce of God by turning the crowd at Clermont into a peace militia dedicated to holy purposes. Finally, Urban’s call placed the papacy in a new position of leadership, one that complemented in a military arena the position the popes had gained in the church hierarchy.

Inspired by local preachers, men and women, rich and poor, young and old, laypeople and clerics heeded Urban’s call to go on the First Crusade (1096–1099). Between 60,000 and 100,000 people abandoned their homes and braved the rough journey to Jerusalem. They went to fight for God, to gain land and plunder, or to follow their lord. Although women were discouraged from going, some crusaders were accompanied by their wives. Other women went as servants; a few may have been fighters. Children and old people, not able to fight, made the cords for siege engines—giant machines used to hurl stones at enemy fortifications. As Christians undertook more crusades during the twelfth century, the transport and supply of these armies became a lucrative business for the commercial classes of maritime Italian cities such as Venice, strategically located on the route eastward.